If you're an entrepreneur hoping to live off the fat of the
land, your time has come. Even as The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention reports that obesity affects 20 percent of the
American adult population, consumers appear to be embracing fatty,
high-calorie foods like never before. Most of the evidence of this
trend is anecdotal; some of it is downright amusing: Taquitos.net,
a potato chip portal that offers snack reviews, gets 200,000 hits a
month. Says its creator, Jeremy Selwyn, 32: "There's more
interest in salty foods than I ever would have thought."

Not to mention sugar. How else can you explain Christopher
Sell's success? Sell not only owns the ChipShop, a
fish-and-chips eatery in Brooklyn, but he also created the infamous
deep-fried Twinkie. "We put it on the menu more for the shock
value than anything else," admits Sell, 37, whose restaurant
brings in $1.3 million annually and is working toward franchising.
"It's more of a talking point, but it has caught on."
State fairs have begun selling the Twinkie, and Sell's
restaurant has received national attention for creating the
concoction.

In fact, the more fattening a food, the more attention an
entrepreneur can expect, says James McKinnon, 37, owner of
Dangerous Dan's Diner in Toronto. He's received much
regional coverage for his Coronary Burger: two 8-ounce beef patties
covered with two slices of cheddar, four slices of bacon and a
fried egg--with french fries and gravy served on the side. He may
only sell 50 a week, compared to 450 other burgers, but "the
damn thing is so ridiculous, people remember you for it," says
McKinnon, who also serves 24 oz. patties in a bun.

"As Americans have more stress in their lives, we'll
see these types of foods increase," says Phil Lempert, a food
industry analyst and a regular contributor on NBC's The
Today Show. He suggests entrepreneurs find decadent foods with
"a huge margin, so when the trend changes, you can get out
quickly, and stay away from products like shrimp or chocolate,
which have a high cost of goods."

Lempert's final warning: "Many entrepreneurs think a
great marketing gimmick turns into profit. Not true in foods.
Remember, we gotta eat this stuff."